What I want to do? What no one else does /  by Mirena Rhee

That one is very easy. I simply look at what everyone else is doing and avoid doing these things. I look for inspiration in things that are great and amplify that greatness in a way I find novel and inspiring.

I certainly am familiar with commercial art creativity and have no sympathy for it because it is not art. I know how art is done in commercial settings and it is impossible to have a singular vision imprinted on work done by many artists and producers and competing interests,

Sometimes there are glimpses of beauty in commercial art which soon enough get veiled over by commercial interests and prevailing opinions.

Often I pick a small idea and develop it gradually in a direction that I think leads to a more beautiful outcome. It is a mistake to not do beautiful work. Whenever I spot something beautiful I develop it in that direction and remove the flaws gradually.

Work has to make sense holistically and answer the Why? question well. Why this shape? Why this location or space? Why these colors and ultimately is the work saying something new to the world, in a beautiful way?

New York City, uninvestigation /  by Mirena Rhee

I'm a big investigator of New York City streets, they're very dense with culture and overflowing with humans and art.

Every square inch in New York City could potentially be covered with some sort of art or graffiti that combined produce an artistic result.

One day I was walking down the street and I looked up and I saw a bolted stop sign and on the back of the stop sign there was an entire caleidoscope of stickers and pictograms and graffiti that made a weird stop sign a painting.

I'm an investigator of signals.

This is why I love augmented reality because it is a contrived three-dimensional figment superimposed over a living and breathing organism.

Point your camera in any direction in New York City and you will find the combined wisdom of a street sign, buildings, street lights, graffiti, close-ups of stickers, sidewalk patterns, street markings, awnings decorated windows, shop signs, building details, traffic light posts and the clothes of people.

Worldbuilding /  by Mirena Rhee


What is the best way to make a great video game?

What is the single most important thing you need to consider?

One word - Worldbuilding.

One of the greatest things I learned at Lucasfilm and I have to emphasize One thing about learning - you never learn from people at the bottom from mediocre people from mediocre companies and bottom feeders.

You only learn from the best in the world and frankly, no one else has anything to say really.



I've worked for and with (not literally) sewer companies when it comes to their vision their accomplishments and so forth and I have spoken to many mediocre bosses & people I've worked with, and not a single lesson was worth it other than don't ever work with people that are other than the best in the world.

Anyway, the biggest single consideration you need to have when you make the greatest video game ever made is Worldbuilding.

The greatest thing that George Lucas created and his company Lucasfilm, was an astonishing Worldbuilding that even the dismal performance of Disney can't yet destroy.

When the entire thing makes thorough sense, from the tallest buildings to the tiniest plants to the nuts and bolts and the rivets of the spaceships. Every character is well grounded in the world, every character's action comes from someplace grounded in the world and goes to a place also grounded in the world.

What does a great filmmaker do? Take for example Ridley Scott or the other great director Luc Besson? Or Stanley Kubrick? Astonishing Worldbuilding. I was recently rewatching The Blade Runner movies and also the Dune movies.

Everything makes sense even if it doesn't make sense. What other world has incredible worldbuilding, unforgettable worldbuilding?

That will be the Matrix series, there was my life before and after the Matrix series. The Matrix even invented words that we now use everyday. Images that we will never forget.

Authors rely on the same scheme - grand worldbuilding. Just think of Tolkien, Dumas, and Tolstoy. It comes out of it a feeling of a place that is not this place. When we finish reading a great book a great story series we step out of the imagination of several titans circling a fire together.

And this is why I always say don't go on YouTube to find out how to make Video Games - rather read great books, watch astonishing movies and think of epic stories taking place in worlds that are going to become the thing that you want to do.

Japan has been a great force in my life for there I received my enlightenment, my blueprint for life and aesthetics. It has nothing to do with Buddhism or religion. /  by Mirena Rhee

Whenever I'm sad or kind of reflective of things I go back to the pictures I took in Japan, Japan is like the Miyazaki movies, beautiful elegant and small, with some terrifying underlying cultural tensions and history and stories, and some terrifying cultural realities. But on the other hand very cute and very safe.

Here are some links to my Japanese photographs. I'm very grateful to George Lucas who used to pay me a lot of money so I used them wisely to visit Japan again.

https://www.mirenarhee.art/portfolio/some-kind-of-japan-part-5/

https://www.mirenarhee.art/project-type/japan/

Because I spent some of the best and most beautiful parts of my life in Japan I decided that when I die I want to be buried Japanese style, My body cremated and my ashes spread over Central Park near Strawberry Fields.

I also want all my arts and articles sold and and a school be established for kids to learn at the intersection of art technology and science, where kids will be able to spend time creatively away from abusive family members.

I personally suffered tremendous abuse as a child and I feel it's my responsibility to make sure child suffering is reduced in the future and kids spend more time being creative. That means being separate from their abusers.

I remember the terror my mom inflicted on me as a child, I think she was not really well but that's not really an excuse, maybe it was a failure of the state or maybe it was the failure of the entire community who knows. I remember years later she would scream abuses after I found out that she was telling people that I'm a prostitute in the UK and such. I'm not really sure if I should laugh or cry. Remember being told by a family member also that I'm crazy that's why I don't have kids. I know that these people can never hurt me anymore because I only see them every few years or so, who knows it's possible we will never see each other again. I forgive you.

For me leaving my abusers behind was the best decision I ever made in my life as a grown-up. I simply left. I created a big ocean of distance between us and they could never hurt me anymore. Once I remember I tried to reconcile with my abusers and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. So I made it kind of a point at least to myself to know - never make deals with your abusers.

When I was teaching I had many kids who were suffering at the hands of abusive people around them and had many encounters with tremendous suffering from the children.

I found that kids could completely immerse themselves in creating art on the computer as a way to cope with abuse to forget the terrible situations around them.

I believe art is a gift, in addition to art I believe science and technology can also be helpful in empowering the creative side of people. And the third aspect is the indispensable part of nature, the beauty of nature which has always been the way Japanese people make art.

In Japan art is created in harmony with nature. They call it man-made nature. It is a harmonious extension of creativity that comes from contemplating the beauty of very simple things like a flower or a leaf or a waterfall.

Glitched /  by Mirena Rhee

Glitch in the Matrix is a series of Augmented reality 3D Installations created by New York City based Artist Mirena Rhee.

Glitch in the Matrix is a Social commentary on "brands" culture and consumerism that has spilled over into "crypto" and "nft".

Glitch is a 3D character the epitome of inexpensive goods proliferated as “brands” or “luxury” goods, or what I call next to nothing goods, and the zero sum or negative sum goods like “crypto” and “nft”.

My take on consumerism and the viable solution I have implemented for myself: minimalism and no buy. No matter what they say - it is still made for $5 somewhere by people who probably live on a $1 a day. It doesn't contribute to your wellbeing, your wellness and your character.

At lest when you buy a "brand" bag that cost $5 to make - I acknowledge that perhaps some design talent went to it, someone may have spent a sleepless night poring over a design. But crypto and its toxic spillage of nft have brought a new level of ugliness into the screen culture. I have never seen a beautiful nft but a proliferation of monkey Jeypegs.

I have never seen real artist make nft because real artist knows that a jpg has zero value unless you throw your artistic weight behind it in making it meaningful, and most importantly - limited edition and independent of an embedded system. What is an embedded system? A system that dies when a commercial entity dies.

A movie can be a digitally distributed product but can be art because even if the movie distribution houses die, and even if Hollywood dies - it can still be seen and accessed in many other ways independent of a commercial ecosystem.

Glith - Glitch in the Matrix is a series of Augmented Reality 3D Installations Social Commentary on Brands Culture created by New York City based Artist Mirena Rhee /  by Mirena Rhee

Glitch in the Matrix is a series of Augmented Reality 3D Installations Social Commentary on Brands Culture created by New York City based Artist Mirena Rhee.

Glitch in the Matrix is a Social commentary on "brands" culture and consumerism that has spilled over into "crypto" and "nft". Brands are the ultimate lie of consumer culture. Now it has become even worse - when it used to be worth next to nothing is now more than nothing - the sum of their parts is negative.

Glitch is a 3D character, the epitome of inexpensive goods proliferated as “brands’ or “luxury” goods, or what I call next to nothing goods, and the zero-sum or negative-sum goods like “crypto” and “nft”.

My take on consumerism and the viable solution I have implemented for myself: minimalism and no buy. No matter what they say - it is still made for $5 somewhere by people who probably live on $1 a day. It doesn't contribute to your well-being, your wellness, and your character.

At least when you buy a "brand" bag that cost $5 to make - I acknowledge that perhaps some design talent went to it, someone may have spent a sleepless night poring over a design. But crypto and its toxic spillage of nft have brought a new level of ugliness into the screen culture. I have never seen a beautiful nft but a proliferation of monkey Jeypegs.

I have never seen a real artist make nft because real artists know that a jpg has zero value unless you throw your artistic weight behind it and make it meaningful, and most importantly - limited edition and independent of an embedded system. What is an embedded system? A system that dies when a commercial entity dies. Like your Blockbuster Rewards card.

A movie can be a digitally distributed product and art because even if the movie distribution houses die, and even if Hollywood dies - it can still be seen and accessed in many other ways independent of a commercial ecosystem.

also my reflection series

Reflections Series - reflections on brands and fake art. Bulgari - aka Bullshit.